Sam Monson provides an overview of the biggest position battles at each position around the NFL ahead of training camp.
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The Patriots let
J.C. Jackson walk in the offseason in a classic example of the team being unwilling to pay big bucks to retain one of its better players. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has an outstanding track record of being proven right in those situations over the last 20 years, but it leaves the New England cornerback depth chart thin. Mills and Mitchell were the presumed starters, but the team has added Butler and Jones as competition.
Jones has phenomenal college tape, but at 5-foot-8 and 185 pounds, he is battling against a weight of history to even play on the outside as opposed to being immediately labeled a slot corner-only at this level. Jones allowed just 48.0% of passes thrown his way to be caught last season and finished his college career with 88.9 and 87.4 PFF coverage grades.
Butler is another example of a player who never matched what he did in New England once he left Belichick’s defense. His PFF coverage grade never came within 10 grading points of his 2016 career high (86.9).
If we assume
Ed Oliver has a starting spot and a healthy volume of playing time locked up because he is stylistically unique among the Bills interior linemen, there is a significant battle brewing for the playing time outside of Oliver’s snaps. Buffalo’s run defense certainly had use for an upgrade up the middle, and the team focused on big, run-stuffing interior linemen this offseason.
Settle’s overall PFF grade has improved each season of his NFL career, but on a stacked Washington defense, he was only able to acumulate 1,023 snaps in four years. Settle still has youth on his side — he is just about to turn 25 years old — and has very little wear and tear after being kept so fresh. He has a chance to be a breakout player if he can show well in training camp.
Jones has posted solid PFF grades virtually every season of his career, and his run defense performances are even better than that. That run defense performance has been heading in the wrong direction over the last couple of years, but he still has the inside track for the starting spot until somebody else can unseat him.
Phillips had Bills fans excited with a 10-sack season a couple of years ago, but those 10 sacks represented more than a third of his total pressures that season and were never a good representation of his performance, as 54.4 and 62.7 overall PFF grades since then have shown a player with a much lower ceiling than that. He’ll have his work cut out to unseat either Jones or Settle.